Apple Music on iOS 26

The Apple Music subscription service has had lossless for 4 years, since June of 2021, so I think maybe there are some folks here sharing experiences that go back until before then. Which sort of proves the argument that people remember negative experiences like they happened yesterday.

It’s also worth noting that the bit depth and sample rate are limited on an album by album basis to what the content provider offers. Apple can’t force a record label to upload 24-bit/192 KHz files to the server cluster, but some have! This is easier to see if you’re playing tracks in the Music app on a Mac where clicking Lossless or High-Resolution Lossless will tell you the actual stream characteristics.

It is true that an Apple TV 4K streaming box has a 48 KHz sample rate limit on it, probably imposed by the choice of HDMI controller chip but I have no idea there. This means that audio above the 48 KHz sampling rate will be downsampled, although it is not clear whether the Music app tells the server it’s running on an Apple TV and the server sends a 48 KHz master of the song or if the Apple TV 4K downsamples it on the fly. Apple hates to waste things like energy and bandwidth and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do the former instead of the latter. When you have hundreds of millions of customers those wasted bits add up!

One thing to note is that in the TV app on Mac computers Apple has added a setting for HDMI Passthrough for Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos content that bypasses all processing in the Mac.

If you want a feature like this for Apple Music, and you want it for all content not just Dolby encided content, the best way to get Apple to listen to you is to go to https://apple.com/feedback and clearly articulate your desires there. Apple reads all that feedback and they have taken action on it in the past!

@mahler123  Well I should hope a service geared solely toward classical would have a more extensive catalog of classical music than a more general site like Qobuz or Tidal.  Apples and oranges.  That’s like me saying I subscribe to Qobuz and recently added Apple Classical and the Qobuz catalog blows it away for jazz, blues, rock, or basically any other genre of music. 

I used the Apple Classical service.  I recently added Qobuz.  I will say that at least in this genre Apple catalog and search engine blow Qobuz away; in the one month I have probably discovered a dozen albums available on Apple that aren’t on Qobuz

Apple also offers a silo’d service as part of Apple Music dedicated to Classical music. It would be interesting to compare catalogues of each service to determine per genre how extensive the choice of albums / music releases is. 

From internet search confirmed by What HiFi: ‘Apple Music offers lossless audio through its subscription service, allowing access to millions of tracks encoded using Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) in various resolutions. Users can choose between standard lossless (up to 24-bit/48 kHz) and hi-res lossless (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) audio quality.’

To confirm, wi-fi streaming of Apple Music also offers up 24bit/192khz.

jetter

I don’t think that the music streaming market is a lucrative business in general ...

It isn’t. Spotify’s profits have been, uh, spotty. Qobuz (Xandrie SA) hasn’t earned a profit. Tidal is privately owned so it’s difficult to tell for certain, but its series of staff cutbacks suggest it isn’t profitable, either. 

@jetter That is a very fair point, and I neglected to mention this could’ve been a conscientious, and maybe even a smart, business decision on Apple’s part, but as an audiophile it doesn’t mean I have to like it.  It’s like their headphones — they’re fun and functional but not geared toward high-end audio consumers.  I guess we audiophiles need to realize the world doesn’t revolve around us, although it certainly should. 😝

I don't think that the music streaming market is a lucrative business in general and especially comparted to Apple's other endeavors.  

Apple is now valued at 3 trillion. That sort of growth and success is not attributable to turning out less than great products. Not saying it’s the best.

We’re happily a 100% Apple household with nary a PC or Android in sight, but Apple totally lost me with music, which is an epic fail since they revolutionized music with the iPod and then totally dropped the ball despite having plenty of resources to have been the absolute gold standard.  That Qobuz and Tidal even exist is testimony to Apple’s failure to address or even care about a large and important part of the market.  Quality just wasn’t there — period.  Steve Jobs was fanatical about doing things right and making things work better than anything else, but that ethos didn’t seem to ever translate fully into Apple Music.  Maybe that’s changing, but it’s been a loooong stretch of continued disappointment so they’re gonna have to show me something real and substantial before I’ll even consider looking at them again.  

About a year ago Apple Music was launching some kind of enhanced audio option.  When the audio press pointed out that everything was limited to 16/48, with some spatial gimmicky thrown in, the Apple Veep essentially said that no one needs more than that, and mp3 was just fine.

  I dispute the Steve Jobs would have done it better—he was quite happy to turn out generations of iPod s.  High Res non compressed listening was available when he was alive, but Apple has long decided that there is no money to be made in catering to older audiophiles.  It’s easier for them to gimmick up compressed sound and market it to the younger crowd as an improvement over bog standard mp3.

‘It really makes no sense other than that Apple just doesn’t care about sound quality thinking the majority of their customers are fine with lossy Bluetooth AAC codecs or Chromecast and other Android based devices (even TVs) resampling everything to 48KHz.’ 
This is not true.

Apple is now valued at 3 trillion. That sort of growth and success is not attributable to turning out less than great products. Not saying it’s the best. Again I have Qobuz and have been a continuous subscriber for several years. Perhaps a trial for a month or so (usually offered at steep discount) will familiarize you with the latest product developments. I listen to much traditional music of Ireland and music of Afghanistan. It has delighted me to find a lot of great Afghan and Irish music so well organized and accessible on Apple Music in the past few days. Again with what I would consider very musically engaging sound quality. 

I believe the general consensus is that, at least until now, Apple made it too difficult to get an actual CD quality or higher resolution audio into our stereo systems. The software would always resample everything to 48KHz and spit it out. Apple was seen more as "music for the clueless masses" than for audiophiles. 

But now we have some streamers based on modified Android operating systems that let you install the native Apple Music app, and they’ve done some software tricks to get the Android operating system to not resample the files to 48KHz. 

EverSolo is one of the brands. I believe the FiiO R7 and R9 streamers are similar except they keep the "cellphone" orientation of the native Android apps instead of trying to shoehorn them into a more "horizontal" looking screen. 

The main thing as Soix wrote is that given Apple’s extremely deep pockets, why isn’t there an "Apple Music Connect" app? It really makes no sense other than that Apple just doesn’t care about sound quality thinking the majority of their customers are fine with lossy Bluetooth AAC codecs or Chromecast and other Android based devices (even TVs) resampling everything to 48KHz. 

I would think that if Steve Jobs were still around an Apple Music Connect app would have been around a long, long time ago. 

@v-fi  I haven’t had Apple Music for a while, but it didn’t sound all that great, didn’t offer hi res and streaming was limited in bandwidth as well.  They’ve just been behind the curve forever with music, but as per the OP maybe they’ve finally got it together. 

@soix What has been your main issues with Apple Music? I mostly switch between Qobuz and Tidal but I do have Apple Music also, don't use it much but it didn't seem terrible to me. 

@4afsanakhan As far as I know you are correct, only Eversolo does Apple Music without any weird workarounds. I enjoy my A6 and A8 but am most excited about the upcoming T8 dedicated transport. 

Apple, with its latest upgrades to Apple Music have really hit it out of the ball park with this one imvho.

IF Apple has finally gotten their act together with music, and I still have my doubts, all I can say is WELL IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!  With their resources it’s an embarrassment that it’s taken this long to put a halfway decent product out there.  I’m happy with Qobuz, and Apple has a looooong way to go before I’ll even consider looking at Apple Music again and frankly doubt I ever will.  Glad you’re enjoying it though. 

Hi Mahler,

Thanks for the input. You may be correct that EverSolo is the only streamer mfr. offering the Apple Music service embedded in the system and taking advantage of EverSolo’s unique algorithms to faithfully sample/ reproduce content either at original bit-rate, or upsampled to 192khz.

I am hoping EverSolo adapt the new improvements in layout and function incorporated in Apple Music as experienced with iOS 26. Even considering  the bit rate transfer limits of AirPlay, I find the option to select and play music direct from my native Apple Music app into the DMP-A6 to offer superb sound that I find very engaging. Apple, with its latest upgrades to Apple Music have really hit it out of the ball park with this one imvho.

Is Eversolo still the only company that makes a streamer that will play Apple Music 

directly?  If that remains the case then for non Eversolo users Apple can improve itself to no avail, if everyone else is limited to AirPlay or Chromecast